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The Northern Rock fiasco, ctd Anatole Kaletsky, writing in today’s Times (of London) has a justifiably ferocious piece about how the “loan” by the benighted British taxpayer to the stricken British mortgage firm, Northern Rock, has encouraged the latter to make all kinds of presumptions about its future behaviour.
I knew this would happen. They may wear smart suits and talk the language of capitalism, but the truth is, City financiers can be just as infantilised by the prospect of taxpayers’ largesse as any farmer or coalminer getting a subsidy. At least the coalminers did a job that was physically dangerous.
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Their job will GET physically dangerous if they don’t keep their thieving hands out of my pocket.
The level of meddling incompetence from the government on this one is pretty typical, unfortunately. They should not have bailed Northern Rock out in the first place. It really is that simple.
Good post J.P.
Why should NR be treated any differently to any other failed business? The shareholders should have called the Board to account and sacked them, then gone into liquidation.
This is an utter, utter debacle. nudging £25bn in (BTW thats not counting the £14bn depositors money back guarantee) no buyer in sight, and the clock ticking towards a compulsory sell off in Feb (otherwise big fines under EU state aids legislation). I cannot see how this situation is better than the letting it go bust option that was on the table to begin with. As far as I can see this is shaping up to be the biggest money bonfire in British political history.
Of course A.K. is very much in favour of general subsidies to the financial industry (under such words as “providing liquidity for the system” or whatever) – it is only specific open subsidies to a particular firm that he opposes.
But if one is going to subsidise a whole industry (in various complex ways) why not subsidise a particular enterprise? After all the Bank of England has sometimes done this on the sly – the difference about Northern Rock is that the whole vile process is out in the open.
It is to be hoped that this “rock” becomes the obstacle that will lead to the break up of Gordon Brown’s ship.